Spanish liberals meet at the Friedrich Naumann Foundation’s office

On 15 of October, members and friends of the Spanish liberal party Centro Democrático Liberal (CDL), who live and work in Brussels, conveyed in FNF’s Brussels office to discuss the result of the German elections and their impact on European and Spanish politics.
Gesine Meißner, Member of the European Parliament for the FDP and Dr. Wolf-Dieter Zumpfort, deputy chairman of the Naumann Foundation, gave their insight into the reasons that lead to such a poor result for the FDP and the current negotiation process to form a coalition.

As Gesine Meißner pointed out, the elections were “an unexpected disaster” for the Freie Demokratische Partei (FDP), which for the first time since its creation had not been able pass the 5% threshold and enter the German Bundestag again. Therefore, the winner of the elections – the conservative CDU – is currently negotiating a coalition agreement – a task that may result far more difficult than it might have been with the FDP.The Spanish liberals were especially interested in getting to know what impact the various coalition agreements could have on the European level and Spain. Gesine Meißner thinks a grand coalition between the CDU and the Social Democrats (SPD) would facilitate the decision-making process at the European level and therefore be preferable to a coalition with the Greens, who – though very pro-European – defend a more radical and prohibitive stance on politics. Overall, German politics would shift to the left no matter what government would be the outcome of the negotiations as there is now a left wing majority in the Bundestag. Meißner was confident that the German liberals will regain strength and the German public will notice how important a liberal voice in German politics is.